how do I touch a symlink?

[der Mouse]

In article <1991May21.225406.22979 at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, phil at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) writes:

> When touching a symlink, the touching process affects the targeted
> file.  I'd like to update the date on the symlink itself.  Is there a
> way to do this in a shell script w/o writing a C program?

As far as I know, the only way to do this is to remove and recreate the
symlink.  (Well, the only civilized way.  If you want to live on the
edge, you can write a program to scribble on the raw disk device.  This
is most definitely not recommended; if you could do that and get it
right, you wouldn't be asking.)

But, why do you care?  The date on a symlink is generally not used for
anything.  You may be trying to solve the wrong problem.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
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